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I'm a lumberjack

WHATEVER happened to the “paperless office”? Thirty years ago the rise of computers was hailed as the beginning of the paperless-office era. In a 1980 briefing in The Economist entitled “Towards the paperless office”, we recommended that businesses trying to improve productivity should “reduce the flow of paper, ultimately aiming to abolish it”. Since then, alas, global paper consumption has increased by half. The average American uses the paper equivalent of almost six 40-foot (12-metre) trees a year. In Belgium paper consumption is pushed up by the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, which must produce its documentation in an array of different languages. The chart shows apparent paper consumption (production plus imports minus exports), which can distort results as it includes paper exported as other products. Finland, for instance, produces a lot of paper and converts it into packaging domestically, exaggerating its paper usage. The same is true for Austria, Sweden and Germany.

The large amount of paper use is very important for the economy. If banks, apartments and phone companies reduced the lengths of their contracts below the 200-page average, it would be too easy for consumers to spot how they're about to get f*d.

We aren’t at all surprised that the paperless office hasn’t arrived. More importantly, we think that’s a good thing, especially for the environment.
Having an economic driver for growing trees is needed because billions of acres of the world’s forests (and ~70% of the US forested lands)1 are working forests. That means each acre has to earn a living, just like most of us! If an acre can’t make a go of it by growing, harvesting, selling and replanting trees, it often gets converted to development, mining or agriculture. None of these other uses can come close to the environmental benefits (clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat) that a well-managed working forest provides.

From a human point of view, the forest products industry provides millions of sustainable, truly green jobs. In the US alone, 900,000 people make their living from forest products directly, and many more do so indirectly (that’s more than automotive, chemicals or plastics).2

Finally, people like to use paper! Even young people show a strong affinity for communicating on paper, and science has shown we learn better from paper than from screens.3

At International Paper we are passionate about forests. Billions of people around the world enjoy using forest products because they are made from a renewable resource that is recyclable and sustains the environment as it grows. And that’s why we so enjoy reading the Economist….on paper.
Sincerely,
Teri Shanahan
VP Sustainability, International Paper

Enough with the emerging market hypocrisy crap. This chart, made by a "developed" country newspaper, wasn't made to make some kind of moral judgement. Facts like these are useful so we know where we can improve.

Emerging markets complain all the time about how the West criticizes/lectures them. Believe it or not, we do it to ourselves too. In fact it's self criticism and drive for constant improvement that has MADE these countries developed in the first place.

According to the text, "the chart shows apparent paper consumption (production plus imports minus exports), which can distort results as it includes paper exported as other products."
But what is meant by "paper"?
Many countries with major forest products industries, eg Chile, Canada, produce a lot of pulp, the main intermediate ingredient in most papers and export it without, themselves, turning it into paper. Pulp is traded on international markets as a commodity.
Furthermore, some countries also export raw logs. Again, they are not exporting paper, just the raw material.
Other countries (I believe this includes Japan) produce paper but don't actually cut that many trees. Rather, they buy pulp in the market and use that as a feed stock for their mills.
Without actually defining what's what, ie are we talking simply of paper or of baled pulp and raw logs, these figures don't reveal very much.
And, again, when we talk of paper, what do we mean - linerboard, ie brown cardboard, newsprint, tissue, fine paper, currency paper? They are very different things.
The relative consumptions of paper shown in the graphic are, in some cases, not intuitive. The perception is that such countries as Canada and Chile don't cut a lot of trees when they in fact do but export a lot of them as pulp or logs.
Then too, is packaging, (CHina must export a lot of that) which is wrapped around other products count as exported paper or doemstically consumed?
Interesting, but raising more questions than it answers.

"The average American uses the paper equivalent of almost six 40-foot (12-metre) trees a year. In Belgium paper consumption is pushed up by the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, which must produce its documentation in an array of different languages. The chart shows apparent paper consumption (production plus imports minus exports), which can distort results as it includes paper exported as other products. Finland, for instance, produces a lot of paper and converts it into packaging domestically, exaggerating its paper usage. The same is true for Austria, Sweden and Germany."

It seems somewhat as though the author was disappointed the U.S. wasn't at the top of the consumption list and scrambled to conjure up weak excuses for European paper consumption. Does the EU bureaucracy in Brussels "inflate the numbers" any more than the U.N. bureaucracy in New York?

Very good points. Perhaps you should invest in counter-propaganda efforts because I recall that throughout all of school in America students are brainwashed that paper usage leads to deforestation, among many other sustainability myths.

It seems that Chinese consume a small number of trees.But the fact is Japan's 5.83 is mostly transported from China(they Japanese themselves are pretty eco-friendly for their own sake,it is not them be to blame but the brainless money-driven Chinese government).We hold the slogan that"save paper,protect trees",meanwhile,we are facing the fact that an increasing number of trees go to their new home beyond the trait.What a ridiculous picture,no,sad.

Any fool can learn from his mistakes.
An intelligent person learns from others' mistakes.
Agreed. The "developed world" has, in the past, made huge environmental mistakes. That's no reason why the "developing world" should want to do the same. Why no develop more intelligently?

I noticed that the figure has been calculated,but I do doubt the correctness of it.Because the amount of paper is absolutely bigger than it appeared on the graph.(from my own experience and knowledge)
however,there is another thing.China has an amazing population,that is,every item,once calculated by billions head,could be a normal number.